The movie: “Fresh” on Disney +
Chilled out from dating apps, hardened bachelor Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) meets Steve (Sebastian Stan) at a convenience store. She agrees on a whim to give him her number. After a first date, she falls under the spell of this very attractive man and agrees to go with him for a romantic weekend. Except that horror awaits Noa…
Directed by Mimi Cave (whose first feature film this is), “Fresh” is in line with Jordan Peele’s films, “Get out” in mind, as the structure seems so similar: a first part in the straight line of independent romantic comedies, then a twist that tilts the film into psychological horror at first, before a bloodier finale (the film is not recommended for children under 16), all with a certain irony of part of certain roles.
The difference of “Fresh” plays on the bottom, approaching here the relations between men and women, and especially the mental load of the women within the couples, the character of Noa thus trying to comply with the multiple injunctions of Steve. But Noa is not just a simple victim, and will try to participate in the dangerous game in which she has fallen.
Although taking too long to get started (the real start coming after half an hour) and struggling to distinguish itself from “Get out”, “Fresh” offers enough ideas to be interesting to follow. The star duo made up of a convincing Daisy Edgar-Jones and a Sebastian Stan continuing after “Pam & Tommy” to play the psychotic characters with a certain pleasure.
The short film: “Train Again” on Mubi
As long as cinema has existed, the figure of the train has fascinated filmmakers. After all, isn’t one of the very first films of the Lumière brothers “The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station”. From steam train attacks in westerns to the Korean zombie movie “Last Train to Busan”, the means of transport remains at the heart of cinema.
“Train Again”, by Austrian artist Peter Tscherkassky, is as much an artistic concept as a tribute to cinema. These excerpts from old films are remixed, reassembled to derive an experience, a vision of rail transport seen by the seventh art with its framing, its narrative figures and its sound effects. It’s obviously conceptual, sometimes disturbing (be careful, some blinking passages may not be recommended for photosensitive people), but also intriguing and interesting.
The series: “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” on OCS
The first scene of the series depicts the end of an era: in 1991, American basketball player Erwin “Magic” Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) in his doctor’s office, after discovering his HIV status, leafs through a magazine with Michael Jordan one. The passing of the baton from the star of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 80s to that of the Chicago Bulls in the 90s.
From 1979 to 1991, “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” will follow how the Lakers will revolutionize the model of the NBA (the North American basketball league) following the ideas of Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly). This whimsical property owner will buy the club, then in a certain form of lethargy, to transform it into a place in the image of the city of movie stars: flashy and sexy (the man was known to have loose morals) . It’s Showtime, and Magic Johnson will be its cornerstone with names as legendary as coach Pat Riley (Adrien Brody) and actor/basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes).
To stage this crazy period, it took nothing less than director Adam McKay (“Vice” or “Don’t look up”) to lead this adaptation (he is the producer and directed the first episode). We find his touch: the historical reconstruction including in the grain of the image, big-mouthed characters challenging the spectator facing the camera (in this game, unsurprisingly, John C. Reilly comes out with honors), and a your serious mix and nasty tackles to the news.
“Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” won’t come as a surprise to Adam McKay fans, but it’s still a more than solid series. Well… she is not available this weekend for your program, but from Monday March 7 on OBS.